


Ashes

by SincerelyStarCadet



Series: Burn [2]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alive Matt | Mail Jeevas, Alive Matt | Mail Jeevas & Mello | Mihael Keehl, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Matello, MelloDramatic, POV Mello | Mihael Keehl, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyStarCadet/pseuds/SincerelyStarCadet
Summary: Waking up after he's sure he died, Mello reminisces on his life and tries hopelessly to escape his mind. He clings on to the memory of the only thing he knows he can trust, Matt, while the world he knows burns around him.
Relationships: Matt | Mail Jeevas & Mello | Mihael Keehl, Matt | Mail Jeevas/Mello | Mihael Keehl
Series: Burn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121357
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Ashes

I'm dying. 

I know I am. It’s inevitable, but I don’t know what’s to come. 

I’m trapped in a hell I can’t escape. My mind is a prison and Jesus all I want is out.

Someone please fucking help me. 

Someone..

I’m reliving all of the moments from my life at this very moment. I can feel everything. 

But this time it’s worse. This time I know the consequences of the actions I take and every time I scream to stop, my past self won’t listen. 

How can you stop things that have already happened? 

Simple. You can’t. 

I don’t think some of these memories are mine. Some of them are from.. Other perspectives, Always with me, but not my thoughts. Not my emotions. 

Things I didn’t even know before. 

Things I didn’t want to know. 

What is going on..

Everytime I go through something, something new happens and I feel like I'm drowning. 

I’m choking on thoughts that aren’t even my own.

Every word that tries to claw its way out of my mouth trickles it’s way down my chin in a bloody bubbling sensation and the only thing that comes out is desperate gurgling as I try and breathe. 

My life is being played on a camera reel before my eyes. I’m not touching solid ground, I’m.. Nowhere. 

Is this hell? Am I being punished? 

Fucking hell someone save me.

I don’t care if that’s pathetic! I’m done caring! 

Someone help me! Someone fucking save me! I’m tired of saving myself..  _ Please. _

I can feel myself slipping further. I know this is it, but that doesn’t mean i’m prepared. 

….

My name isn’t Mihael Keehl. 

That name died with my past life. 

It burned away as scorching tears made their way down my face. 

I’ve burned since the day I was born. 

There was always something inside me that felt like a flame. Something real. Something that was intense yet unidentifiable. 

I was always burning. I just didn’t realize until the day that I had died. 

I can remember it so clearly now.. And fuck I wish I didn’t. I wish I was numb. I wish I could no longer feel. That would be so much better than this hell. 

I was born December 13, 1989, at precisely 11:11 pm. What a joke, huh? The  _ angel’s _ number. My mother and father, being the devout christians they were, thought I was born blessed by an angel. A goddamned angel. It’s such a cruel joke. I was anything but. They didn’t even know my mother was pregnant until the third trimester. She was too skinny, too bare and starved of the things she needed to survive for it to be recognizable. The small growing lump in her stomach was considered to be a tumor, and so off to the doctor they went. How lucky were they to learn a prematurely-born runt was going to pop out of her. 

How lucky was I to be born a miracle child. A  _ miracle.  _ That’s what they called me. A blessing, a gift from God; you name it, I was called it. I was the farthest thing from a blessing. My mother soon learned this after simply holding me in her arms for the first time. 

You would expect a mother to be happy to hold a child in her arms. But watching this now… feeling her emotions. She wasn’t. I was hot to the touch. I burned her the moment I touched her, and she knew I would lead to her demise. An innocent, wide blue-eyed baby, who burned my own mother with the first breath of life that I had taken. My small, chubby fingers hooked around her rosary, and tugged, marking her for her grave. She looked down at me speechless. A look of dismay was there, not love. I had already taken her youth from her. I would go on to take her time, her money and resources, her basic livelihood. Once the euphoria and adrenaline had taken a dip, she realized just why she had never tried for a child. I wasn’t a blessing by any means. 

Having a kid was something they really just couldn’t afford. My Pops scraped by, but not by much. We lived in a small, dinky apartment. Leaky ceilings and splintering floorboards were my playground. The rats were my best friends. I never knew any better of course. Everyday was the same. Dad left for work and didn’t come home until I was already in bed. I always waited until I heard his voice to fall asleep though. Not for me, but for my mother. They would scream at each other as I cowered beneath the covers. I just wanted to know my mother was okay. I hated hearing it. I hated knowing they were fighting because of me. So I waited until the yelling stopped. Waited until I could be sure the screams weren’t that of pain. 

They would have been fine without me. I am fucking sure of that. 

As I grew older I noticed more things. I had been to other people’s houses, seen other kids clothes, and knew we were different. I knew it was because of me too.

Sometimes I’d come across my mother, sitting in a chair and just staring. I never knew what she was thinking about, I just felt compelled to say something. 

“Es tut mir leid, Mama.” I would say, apologizing. For what you might ask? Well I never really knew. The way she looked at me, the way I could feel her eyes piercing through my skin, made me want to apologize. 

…..

My ashes were scattered, but not by my own will. 

I died from a heart attack but something,  _ something _ kept me there. 

I was sure as hell dead, but somehow I could still feel and know what was happening to my body.

My last thought as I died was Mail. 

…...

  
  


Everything went dark.

It wasn’t like before though.. No. Something was different. 

I could hear something that wasn’t just a memory. 

“Mello!”

That’s not my name. 

“Mello please!”

This is wrong. 

“ _ NO! _ Please!-”

What do you want?

“....”

The voice didn’t respond obviously, but it seemed so familiar. Why did it only seem familiar?

…..

Mello’s face twisted in horror. He dropped to his knees, staring at the infinite dark that was his prison. What he thought were his hands were shaking with such unbridled intensity. 

He wasn’t remembering. He was  _ forgetting.  _

As each memory burned through his skull, it was burning away at his mind. By the time it was finished, he would be a blank slate. His pain would be gone, but he would  _ lose  _ everything.. The very things that made him who he was. 

Panic filled him in an instant. Screaming and holding his head, Mello sank to the floor. He clawed at himself, scratching senselessly to try and stop the memories leaking from his mind. He screamed until there was nothing left. For once there was nothing he could do.

He had faced off against the greatest criminal known to man and had made a literal god of death fear him. What was wrong with him? What a pathetic and senseless husk of his former self that he had become. 

Mello sobbed, the sound of a wounded animal escaping his lips. He was pathetic. Pathetic! What a good thing it was he was dead. 

“Wait! Please wait!-” He started running, he didn’t know where. He seemed to be in an infinite abyss, there was nowhere to run to, only a voice to follow. Where could you possibly go, when there was nothing in front of you?

Matt was alive. He was  _ alive _ .

When Mello had seen Matt get shot over the screen while driving, he had assumed Matt had died. He pushed his grief down, and focused solely on accomplishing his goal. He didn’t realize it then, but when Matt was shot in front of him on the small TV, it was no longer about Kira. It was no longer about L, or fucking beating Near. It was about Matt. His entire moral compass had shifted at the ringing of one shot. His view on the world and it’s cruelty had cured in a moment's notice. 

God was he a mess, but he was alive. Bandaged, bruised, in literal blood seeped clothing, he stood there. He stared at Mello intensely 

“Matt I-” He was cut off by Matt walking straight through him. 

He paled. Of course. It made sense to him now. He was dead. Matt couldn’t see him. 

He watched as Matt frantically searched through the rubble remains of the church. The truck was still there, blown to fucking bits. But Matt wouldn’t stop looking. He wouldn’t stop.

Trudging over mound after mound, pushing past pile after pile of rubble, he would not cease. His bad arm hung over his side in a poorly mended sling. When it came out of said sling, Matt grunted, but didn’t stop. His hand became raw and red from the force of digging past cemented bricks and metal remains. Untreated cuts bled over his hand until Mello just couldn’t look at him anymore. 

It had become clear he wouldn’t stop without proof of Mello’s death. 

Mello tried to help him. To tell him he was  _ here _ . He tried everything but he couldn’t reach Matt. He couldn’t tell him to stop. He did everything.

He screamed, cried out to him, called Matt those stupid nicknames he always metled over. He tried to touch him, but everytime he did, it just went right through him. 

What a sick fucking joke. 

He could see his grieving, unbelieving, love of his life before him, but could do  _ nothing.  _ Never in his life had Mello felt so defeated. It dragged on for hours, Matt getting weaker at every turn.

Every stone turned over, every time Matt cried out from pain and exhaustion.. Mello’s heart broke more.

Mello wasn’t a sappy person. He’d lived through so much shit, and learned to accept the world as it was. But standing there, watching Matt hopelessly look for something.. something that was Mello’s. 

He was so utterly helpless. If he could throw up, Mello knew it would be all over himself now. 

At this rate, Mello wasn’t even sure Matt was going to survive. He wasn’t sure of the date, but he knew it couldn’t have been long after his death. Matt’s wounds were fresh, the blood from his bullet wounds seeping through the sleeve of his black and red striped shirt. 

Matt was wheezing, and Mello was scared. He couldn’t do shit, and that terrified the living hell out of him. It was almost the same feeling he had when he learned that L had first died. Someone he felt was so utterly invincible had died on a case he had taken to satisfy his boredom more than anything else. The utter vulnerability he felt now was somehow worse than the heart attack that killed him. 

Mello bit his lip, determined to do something. Matt was so persistent, so entranced that he wasn’t even crying. Mello was convinced Matt was the biggest goddamn cry baby ever to exist. He cried over those stupid commericals trying to steal your money by showing sad kittens and puppies. He had cried when he learned the new Mario game was delayed. He wasn’t crying now.. And that was somehow worse.

Mello started to look around, trying to help a numb Matt in any way he could. He couldn’t really touch anything, so all his digging was done at surface level, never once taking his eyes off Matt. He was too worried he would turn around and find he had left. 

It took a while, but he eventually found what he was looking for. His mother’s rosary.  _ His  _ rosary. Leaning down, he realized that he could actually touch it. 

He was kind of new to this death thing, but put two and two together and assumed he could touch anything that was his. He was tired of this shit already. 

Picking it up, Mello turned the rosary over, the scorch marks evident. He shuddered, realizing some of his ashes were most likely below. The beads remained fine, and so was the string. It had survived one fire already.. So why not two?

When he looked up, he realized he had momentarily lost sight of Matt, instinctively calling out his name. He caught himself on the third time, sighing before peeking around a larger pile of rubble and spotting Matt. Red bangs stuck to his forehead with sweat, Matt wheezing as a single tear rolled down his face. He closed his eyes and panic coursed through Mello. 

“You are not dying now! Not after living through that you fucking idiot!” Mello said, throwing the rosary in Matt’s direction.

Matt opened his eyes and looked over rapidly. His amber gaze darted to the shine against the rubble, tearing up as he realized what it was. He crawled over to the object, not strong enough to stand. Reaching out with his one good hand, he grabbed the object and clutched it close to his heart. 

“Mihael…. Mihael Keehl..”

…That was his name. 

When was the last time he had heard it? 

His mother shrieking his name for what would be the last time. 

Gasoline.. 

Flames.. 

He watched as she poured it on herself, no sound but the agonizing sound of his name repeated over and over. A chant.. no.. a testament to what he would become. The tone became louder each time as more of her melted away. The screams.. Oh  _ god _ the screams.. Each syllable was a shrieking melody growing in intonation and valor. Louder and louder the noises grew, his name dissipating into nothing more than a strangled animal's cry. 

That’s what he remembered from that night. 

The smell of burning flesh made him retch clumps of sick over his ragged clothes. He clutched a rosary in his palm so tight it started to bleed, the blood trickling over the red and tangerine beads. He was an Antichrist, his mother paying for all the sins she knew he would eventually commit. 

He was dragged out of the house by a force he didn’t care to recognize at the time. It was aggressive and uncaring. Pulled away from the candle that his mother had become, shrill screams melting into horrible anarchist laugher. The chant of his forsaken name continued. 

At one point on his way out of the slowly crumbling shitty apartment, Mello dropped the rosary. No time was taken for deliberation as he dove back into the flames, grabbing the holy marked object. He shrieked in pain, the few moments of resting on the heating wooden panels enough to heat the rosary to a searing degree. A cross was left indented into his palm, sealing the earlier wound in a mark of a fallen savior. 

His father yanked him out by the hair. “Mama!- MAMA!” Mello screamed; kicking, pulling, tugging,  _ prying _ for escape. He wished to be with his mother. He wanted nothing more than to be with her. She was calling out for him, doing this all for  _ him _ . How could he let her burn on her own? She called for him, she needed him. She did not stop his name, not even as her vocal cords became more strained with each cry and breath in. She could not cry, there was no longer skin to cry on to. 

The chanting stopped. His mother’s flame was out. 

It was over. Mihael Keehl was over. 

That was the way that it stayed for years. A cold, waxing shell of a hollow flame coated itself around Mello. 

It was impenetrable. No fire was left. There was a longing.. Oh god was there ever, but nothing could be done. 

His mother could not be returned to him. His father would never take him back. He would be transferred from orphanage to orphanage until he ended up at Whammy’s house. 

His flame stayed dormant. Even as he was consistently reminded how second rate he was to the beloved first child that was Nate River. Nate was the true blessing, the idea cemented every single day. He knew what a curse he was. Mello couldn’t understand why he was even wanted for a second place position. 

His flame was sparked, but only by anger, not enough to ignite any form of passion back into his life. He wanted nothing more than to feel.. Something. Something other than pain, guilt, and sadness. The dastardly mellow feelings that created his name. Mello was a hollow husk of the bright blue eyed child he once was, so undeniably angry at the world.

That was until Mail came along. 

Slowly, Matt burned Mihael back into Mello. 

Ever so slightly, a new flame was sparked by Matt’s hands. 

Gentle, warm, loving touches of grace spurred on further by Matt’s careful kindling.

New feelings of kindness, one’s felt only by his mother had been returned. 

It was something Mello never understood. People had been kind to him, but never the way that Matt had. There was an authenticity to it, something real and raw that had not been felt by his numerous caretakers at Whammy’s. 

Mello had always figured it had come from Matt’s past. Both of them had dark and dampened childhood’s, dropped off at Whammy’s doorsteps for similar reasons. Matt’s parents were physically and emotionally abusive. The mental torment and anxiety he experienced persisted in all of Matt’s daily activities. Mello saw all of it, he knew. Some of the scars and cigarette burns faded, but never the instinctual flinching or incessant need for reassurance. 

He always asked if he was a burden, even though he was the furthest thing from it. Always, at least once a week. Matt knew it was annoying, and god did he ever apologize after asking the same repeated question. He was as broken as Mello was, but it showed itself in different ways. Even though he got frustrated, Mello always answered what he knew Matt wanted to hear, what he knew was true himself. Matt was never a burden. His parents had convinced him he was, and it never went away. If anything, Mello was a burden, at least in the way he saw it. He never understood how Matt, the happy-go-lucky gamer could be reduced to a writhing and sobbing mess over the idea that he made people’s lives worse. 

What a sick fucking idea. What a thought it was that his laughter could be replaced with tears by such a horribly inaccurate thought.

How could his own thoughts be daggers against him? Why was Mello’s touch and words the only things that cured him? 

Mello didn’t understand it. 

Turns out he really didn’t understand a lot of things. 

There were some things you couldn’t fix. No matter how many times you glue a broken vase back together, it’s cracks still linger. 

Matt may have been just as broken as Mello, but he did more fixing than Mello could have accounted for. 

The two of them were attached at the hip from the moment Matt arrived at Whammy’s. Hand in hand they navigated the cruel world they had wrongfully been indoctrinated into. What a world it was that they lived in, devoid of the joy of a happy family and filled with the pressure of living up to the world’s greatest detective. 

How could someone live up to that title? Let alone three lonely kids. Mello hated Near, but he had to give credit to the way he handled his own shitty childhood. Near was blank, entirely emotionless when he chose to be. He responded to his parents murders, being forced into a rigorous training program, and the pressure of being the number one successor by closing himself off. He could be open when he chose to be, and shut off the next moment. 

It made Mello so entirely envious. He was a lit fuse, and when sparked could go off at about just anyone. There was no capping his fury when lit. 

They all responded to their tragedies in different ways. 

Matt became anxiety ridden.

Mello became angry. 

Near became blank. 

Coping came in many forms, but Mello’s was the one that got him in the most trouble. 

Mello’s anger was considered to be just another part of his personality, but his unbridled rage was much more than that.

He burned constantly, everything he touched flaring with him. He escalated situations with his raging flame more than they could be distilled. He drove people away with the marks and scars he left on any relationship. 

He burned since the day he was born, the flame only ignited more with rage and hurt that built over the years. 

Matt helped so much, and kindled his flame to a manageable degree. But his flame could never truly be put out. He could never be calm and collected like Near, never as kind and pure as Matt. He would always be marked by a flame. 

You can’t run from a fire, it clung to Mello’s very soul. 

Mello could only imagine what he’d do if he’d lived and Matt had been the one to the die. 

He’d set the whole world on fire. 

….

Waking up from a haze of slipping memories, Mello focused himself with force and clung to the one thing he could fully recognize- Matt. The red head was sobbing over a pile of rubble, unaware that Mello’s very soul stared back at him. 

His head hurt so much more than he thought possible, groaning as he clung on to his hair and tugged, his mind splitting in so many useless directions. At this point he could truly only be sure of his love for Matt, anything else was a guessing game. 

He knew that begging would be useless, Matt wouldn't be able to see or hear him, and even if he could, what would he say? 

Mello walked forward in a daze, sitting next to him on the pile of rubble. Matt just cried, the most painful thing that Mello had ever heard. Cries of anguish, anger, fear, and loss. Mello could feel the emotions radiate from Matt’s body, foreign to this vessel of sarcasm and smiles. 

Mello tried and failed to touch Matt, to grab his hand, to perform any act of comfort, but he was useless. Here sat an orphan, any semblance of home he found in Mello shattered. Mello knew there would forever be a hole Matt could not fill, a potential life between them unlived. All he could do was hope whatever force enabled him to see Matt still alive, still breathing despite the bullet wounds, would extend the same to the passion and fire Matt held in his heart. The way he would kiss Mello on his forehead, nose, and chin in descending order, the rage quits over mario kart, the giddiness he got over cracking a code. He prayed that none of the light inside him would die in the way Mello’s had when his mother passed, because now no one was there to relight it once again.

Mello cried. He didn't know what else he could do. Sitting there hopelessly, his to-be fiance screaming as he cursed out the world around him. What the fuck else could he do? What more could be done?? They could have been married,  _ married _ for fuck’s sake. He always thought Matt would make a gentle father. 

A whole happy life had been ripped away from them, Matt drawing the losing straw. He would live the rest of his life, no matter how short, mourning his lover. Wishing for a different life. Looking for signs that something would change. A hopeless cycle of ruin. 

Mello was convinced that love didn't exist until he met Matt. No, he knew it didn't. He needed constant reminding that despite everything, Matt still loved him. Still would love him. Seeing the broken husk of what Matt was before.. He wished he never had Matt make those promises.

The two of them sat there for hours, Matt sweating and uncaring as he laid in the rubble clutching Mello’s rosary tight to his chest. He sobbed until his throat and lungs had given out. There was nothing left. No emotion to express after pouring yourself out to someone who wasn’t truly there.

The sun had started to set, Matt moving for the first time in hours. He weakly picked himself up, his legs shaking unbearably from the new strain. Matt coughed, spitting a small clump of blood onto the shattered concrete. He stared at it for a moment, before turning to face the exact place where Mello stood from him.

Matt took a breath. Mello stood rigid. There was no physical way that Matt could see him. Perhaps it was a feeling that led him to Mello or a hopeful guess. Either way, Matt no longer looked through him, he looked  _ at _ him. 

Two singular words formed their way on Matt’s tender lips before Mello could even process the fragile whisper. 

“ _ Goodbye Mihael _ .” 

The words were enough to break Mello entirely, but he was relieved. It was the last time that they would ever lock eyes. The last time where Mello would truly be  _ seen _ by someone. A sob escaped his lips. Matt could say goodbye. Mail would be able to say goodbye. 

His heart wrenched as he watched Mail limp back to the car, bleeding with tear stained cheeks, but able to let go. Able to live.

Mail drove off away from the gravesite, unaware as Mihael waved him off for one final time. 

A pale hand reached out from behind, Mello turning to spot a tall almost angelic figure, draped in a glowing white shirt and jeans ragged as ever. The raven haired man smiled at him, Mello tearfully smiling back, a wordless exchange of pride. 

He took the familiar hand.

The flame was finally out. 

Mello could rest. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thank you so so much for reading! This work is a sequel/kind of prequel to my previous work Burn, so if you liked that consider giving that a read! I hope you enjoyed, let me know your thoughts in the comments. Kudos and comments are always appreciated :)


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